The star-spanning story of humanity's colonization of other planets,
Ursula K. Le Guin's visionary Hainish novels and stories redrew the map
of modern science fiction, making it a rich field for literary
explorations of "the nature of human nature," as Margaret Atwood has
described Le Guin's subject. Now, for the first time, the complete
Hainish novels and stories are collected in a definitive two-volume
Library of America edition, with new introductions by the author. This
first volume in a definitive two-volume edition gathers the first five
Hainish novels: Rocannon's World, in which an ethnologist sent to a
bronze-age planet must help defeat an intergalactic enemy; Planet of
Exile, the story of human colonists stranded on a planet that is slowly
killing them; City of Illusions, which finds a future Earth ruled by
the mysterious Shing; and the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning masterpieces
The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed--as well as four
short stories.
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization
founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by
publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most
significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than
300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in
length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.